A WAR STORY

In 1939 I was 21 years old, in the Royal Navy, and therefore an early starter in the Second World War. However, my active part in that conflict ceased in March 1942 when my second ship was sunk by the heavy guns of the Japanese Navy in the Battle of the Java Sea, described by Winston Churchill as "the forlorn battle" which we lost and which resulted in me swimming around for a couple of days in the Java Sea, from where fortunately the sharks had been temporarily frightened away by the gunfire of the battle. During the night, perched on the make-shift raft we had constructed I did dream that Royal Navy speedboats had come speeding over the horizon to pick us up - but no such luck! Later that day the Japanese reappeared and rescued us from the ocean.

Their Navy treated us quite well as fellow seafarers but eventually we were put ashore at Macasar in the Celebes where the decent treatment ceased. The Japanese military were in charge now. As a POW I served for 3.5 years, a most unpleasant experience full of the most distressing stories. However the latter period of my incarceration was in Japan where I worked beside Japanese civilians, from whence comes a story or two that seem to me to have some meaning.

One of the last places in which I did time was a coal mine, one where you walked down to the coal face, and back up again. Another POW and I, along with a middle-aged Japanese miner, were engaged in removing and replacing the pit props in our section. This was a risky business but the miner seemed to know what he was doing. During our lunch breaks when we all opened our very similar rice boxes he was quite chatty, and more importantly,informative. He was almost as eager for the war to end as we were. Among the bits of information he passed on to us was news of the Russians entering the war against Japan.

Then one day we all knocked off work and went our separate ways, but when we reached the minehead we had a shock. There were no soldiers there to count us and march us back to the camp which was about half a mile away. No-one there was interested in us - we felt lost - nobody to take us 'home'. We had to go it alone and when we got back to the camp - another shock! The gates were open - there no guards - only prisoners, kitchen hands and those too sick to work. They all said the same - "Its all over - the Commandant has locked himself in his office and won't speak to us".

We knew something had happened the previous week as the guards had run around like scalded cats shouting at us "All men wear shirts - American fire bomb". We had found out about the fire bombing of Tokyo and later we had seen the American planes passing overhead. This must have been the bombing of Hiroshima although we had never heard of the city. However, this was something else, but what? Someone said they had seen a big cloud to the south, from the direction of Nagasaki where our previous camp had been situated. But what did it mean?

Since the camp gates were open and there was nobody in charge we just walked in and out. I went up to the village to look for my Japanese colleague and he took me to his home. His wife made tea as we shared our pleasure at the war's end. He gave me a Japanese figurine from his home which I still have.

It was a day or two later when we saw the first of the refugees fron Nagasaki - a trickle to begin with of men, women and children like ghosts, terribly burnt - a quite ghastly sight. Two or three of us decided to make our way to Nagasaki. We just hijacked the transport as all the local Japanese were frightened to death of the POW's.

We made it as far as the outskirts of the city and stood on the green slope of a hill from where we looked down the other side which was black, brown and flattened over the still smoking ruins of the city.

We just stood and stared. Hardly a word was spoken. The smell was quite unspeakable.

I did hear a lone American voice, obviously a POW as there were no other Americans yet in Japan. He said very clearly "I guess no son of a bitch will ever start another goddam war". How wrong he was!

In spite of the tremendous relief at my personal freedom it was a sight about which, even then, I could not avoid feeking somewhat ashamed.

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